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https://www.ifixit.com/News/110039/double-trouble-for-repair-monopolies-washington-passes-two-right-to-repair-bills https://www.ifixit.com/News/110039/double-tr

https://www.ifixit.com/News/110039/double-trouble-for-repair-monopolies-washington-passes-two-right-to-repair-bills https://www.ifixit.com/News/110039/double-trouble-for-repair... Come January 1, 2026, manufacturers must also stop using parts pairing to block repairs for these devices. That means no more pop-ups that say “unknown part” when you swap in a working screen. No more downgrading your camera or fingerprint sensor just because you repaired your own phone. SB 5680 goes even further for wheelchair users. It covers power wheelchairs, manual wheelchairs, power-assist devices, and mobility scooters. Manufacturers will have to provide not only parts and tools, but also firmware and embedded software, the stuff that’s often used to digitally lock out independent fixes.

jasonthorsness 1y ago
Here is the bill for consumer electronics: https://app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary/?BillNumber=1483&Year=2025&Initiative=false#documentSection https://app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary/?BillNumber=1483&Year=202... Text as passed (for pasting into LLM :)): https://lawfilesext.leg.wa.gov/biennium/2025-26/Pdf/Bills/House%20Passed%20Legislature/1483-S.PL.pdf?q=20250604085723 https://lawfilesext.leg.wa.gov/biennium/2025-26/Pdf/Bills/Ho... I wondered what it would mean for small manufacturers and they are not exempt however o3 believes "in practice, your duty is limited to providing whatever service manuals, firmware-pairing utilities, and spare parts you already possess (or have made for warranty work) and making them available at cost, digitally for free." EDIT: as people below have posted, o3's "at cost" is misleading, the text actually says "at costs that are fair to both parties"
- rafram 1y ago
  Pretty much all of that o3 output is wrong. You could at least check its work before posting.
- sokoloff 1y ago
  Why would anyone believe that spare parts would need to be provided at cost? I’m a proponent of right to repair, but that would be an absurd over-step (and be a strong force to ensure that no spare parts are available to anyone).
  - bilekas 1y ago
    To play devils advocate here, maybe the idea is that if the part is not eligible for third party sales by way of patents etc, then the manufacturer should not be allowed to simply charge more for a replacement part that that of a newer model? That's the only kind of example I can think of.
  - abeppu 1y ago
    IDK about "at cost" but shouldn't _some_ price regulation of spare parts be included? With no limits, any manufacturer might say "The price for any spare part is the cost of the original item + a significant additional fee, because our process will be to pull a complete new unit from the warehouse, and have someone disassemble it and send you the one part."
    - MichaelZuo 1y ago
      Manufacturers can already legitimately say the additional price for 1 spare part for a $5 part is actually $250,000 dollars because the last mould has worn out…? Typically nobody would actually go through with placing any orders beyond that point, unless they’re the pentagon.
      - amanaplanacanal 1y ago
        They might want to talk to their legal departments before claiming such a thing if it isn't actually true. Lawsuits involve discovery.
        MichaelZuo 1y ago
        How does this relate to my comment or any other comment in the chain? I don’t think anyone suggested manufacturers could get away with lying all the time.
        deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
- Aloisius 1y ago
  Getting parts at cost? So I could find some manufacturer using a part I want and order it at their cost rather than having to go to a retailer? Is there anything that allows a manufacturer to require you send in the broken part after or any limit to how many times something can be "repaired"? Because I'd like to purchase a very large number of NVIDIA GPUs at cost.
- ZeWaka 1y ago
  Very interesting, there's a carveout for video game consoles: > Nothing in this chapter shall be construed to require any original manufacturer or authorized repair provider to make available any parts, tools, or documentation required for the diagnosis, maintenance, or repair of a video game console and its components and peripherals. Wonder if Valve/Xbox/Nintendo asked for that, this being Washington State.
  - tadfisher 1y ago
    Valve already provides parts and documentation for the Steam Deck through a partnership with iFixit.
  - ender341341 1y ago
    Given the support valve provides for the steam deck I'd be surprised if it was them. They seem much more interested in having a viable alternative to keep Microsoft from walling windows in such a way to kill steam than caring that they make the actual devices. I would 100% percent expect both Microsoft & Nintendo to have had a hand in that though.
    - ZeWaka 1y ago
      Yeah, I figure so - they were just the first company in Washington to come to mind given that I own their product, unlike the others :)
    - freedomben 1y ago
      Yes exactly. If anything, I would expect Valve to support this bill based on how repair-friendly they are. I will admit that over the years I've become a huge Valve fanboy because of their amazing contributions to Linux and making the Steam Deck an open platform, but Valve has really done a ton to make the world a better place. Yes it benefits their business too, but they definitely could have gone more evil than they did, so there's still reason to praise them.
    - RajT88 1y ago
      I've often wondered how much cross-talk there is between the two companies, given that the Nintendo America HQ is smack in the middle of the sprawling Microsoft campus. There's got to be some, I should think.
msgodel 1y ago
Nice! That had gotten extremely ridiculous to the point where I've been actively avoiding new consumer products just because maintaining them is such a hassle.
dmonitor 1y ago
Hopefully this doesn't mean the system can't report a non-OEM part being installed at all. Buying a used product that's been hacked apart would be frustrating.
- onli 1y ago
  There is no such restriction in the law. The relevant section reads like this, section 3: > an original manufacturer may not use parts pairing to: ... Cause a digital electronic product to display misleading alerts or warnings about unidentified parts, which the owner cannot immediately dismiss. So of course there can still be a notice, it just has to be dismissable. But Apple (the main company using part pairing against customers right now) has to stop making their products unusable when non-OEM parts are used for a repair. Side note: Be aware that baseless concerns like this echo propaganda against Right to Repair. You might have been infected by some Apple follower talking points there.
  - Loughla 1y ago
    So there's nothing stopping them from having that pop up every single time you turn your phone screen on?
    - onli 1y ago
      Just above it says: > an original manufacturer may not use parts pairing to ... Reduce the functionality or performance of a digital electronic product Dismissable would have to be defined, but when being annoying about it it should be possible to show that it reduces the functionality. It would be clearly against the spirit of the law, but sure, Apple already risked management jail time by ignoring court orders so they might try stuff here as well.
  - tbrownaw 1y ago
    > Side note: Be aware that baseless concerns like this echo propaganda against Right to Repair. You might have been infected by some Apple follower talking points there. "How dare you be anything less than blindly enthusiastic about this obviously good thing, you've clearly been tricked by someone evil."
guywithahat 1y ago
The phone part sounds great, the wheel chair portion sounds like it will just make wheel chairs more expensive. Wheelchairs are generally already highly repairable, and this will just reduce the options to consumers
- Loughla 1y ago
  High end wheelchairs are the opposite of repairable. A friend of mine has to use one because of his disability. It was the only model that met his particular needs for his disability, and was around 14k when he bought it. He can't even change the battery pack without sending it back to the company. The horn shorted out, and if we had disabled it (he can't even use it), it would've voided the entire warranty. Fuck, one of the wheel spoke things cracked and we couldn't even put a new wheel on it, because they only sell the wheels as part of the lower chassis to the tune of 5k. It's obscenely expensive to have a disability in the US, and these companies take advantage of people who just want to have basic mobility. It's really disgusting.
  - sokoloff 1y ago
    > if we had disabled it (he can't even use it), it would've voided the entire warranty. The Magnuson-Moss Act pretty surely falsifies that claim by the manufacturer. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnuson%E2%80%93Moss_Warranty_Act https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnuson%E2%80%93Moss_Warran...
- miki123211 1y ago
  It'll just make many good wheelchairs unavailable in WA, forcing consumers to buy out of state, import from a foreign company that doesn't care about state laws, or go with a worse product. Since these are presumably financed by the government, the first two options may not even be available to most.
amazingamazing 1y ago
> That means no more pop-ups that say “unknown part” when you swap in a working screen. No more downgrading your camera or fingerprint sensor just because you repaired your own phone. I'm curious if that means that it's now illegal for the company to tell you if you have a device with fake parts. I also don't quite understand the security implications. If you need some attested part, like a TPM, and this and some other thing like a fingerprint sensor fail and you replace them both, you cannot disable the fingerprint sensor since now technically it cannot attest itself?
- grishka 1y ago
  Why not allow pairing the fingerprint sensor with the SoC fully offline?
- miki123211 1y ago
  Presumably, you can have the TPM tie fingerprint data to the sensor. If you replace the sensor with a "fake" one, old fingerprint data becomes invalid. This would be good enough for users, as adding their fingerprints back would take them minutes at most, while providing no value for attackers.

jasonthorsness 1y ago

Here is the bill for consumer electronics: https://app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary/?BillNumber=1483&Year=2025&Initiative=false#documentSection https://app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary/?BillNumber=1483&Year=202... Text as passed (for pasting into LLM :)): https://lawfilesext.leg.wa.gov/biennium/2025-26/Pdf/Bills/House%20Passed%20Legislature/1483-S.PL.pdf?q=20250604085723 https://lawfilesext.leg.wa.gov/biennium/2025-26/Pdf/Bills/Ho... I wondered what it would mean for small manufacturers and they are not exempt however o3 believes "in practice, your duty is limited to providing whatever service manuals, firmware-pairing utilities, and spare parts you already possess (or have made for warranty work) and making them available at cost, digitally for free." EDIT: as people below have posted, o3's "at cost" is misleading, the text actually says "at costs that are fair to both parties"

rafram 1y ago
Pretty much all of that o3 output is wrong. You could at least check its work before posting.
sokoloff 1y ago
Why would anyone believe that spare parts would need to be provided at cost? I’m a proponent of right to repair, but that would be an absurd over-step (and be a strong force to ensure that no spare parts are available to anyone).
- bilekas 1y ago
  To play devils advocate here, maybe the idea is that if the part is not eligible for third party sales by way of patents etc, then the manufacturer should not be allowed to simply charge more for a replacement part that that of a newer model? That's the only kind of example I can think of.
- abeppu 1y ago
  IDK about "at cost" but shouldn't _some_ price regulation of spare parts be included? With no limits, any manufacturer might say "The price for any spare part is the cost of the original item + a significant additional fee, because our process will be to pull a complete new unit from the warehouse, and have someone disassemble it and send you the one part."
  - MichaelZuo 1y ago
    Manufacturers can already legitimately say the additional price for 1 spare part for a $5 part is actually $250,000 dollars because the last mould has worn out…? Typically nobody would actually go through with placing any orders beyond that point, unless they’re the pentagon.
    - amanaplanacanal 1y ago
      They might want to talk to their legal departments before claiming such a thing if it isn't actually true. Lawsuits involve discovery.
      - MichaelZuo 1y ago
        How does this relate to my comment or any other comment in the chain? I don’t think anyone suggested manufacturers could get away with lying all the time.
        deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
Aloisius 1y ago
Getting parts at cost? So I could find some manufacturer using a part I want and order it at their cost rather than having to go to a retailer? Is there anything that allows a manufacturer to require you send in the broken part after or any limit to how many times something can be "repaired"? Because I'd like to purchase a very large number of NVIDIA GPUs at cost.
ZeWaka 1y ago
Very interesting, there's a carveout for video game consoles: > Nothing in this chapter shall be construed to require any original manufacturer or authorized repair provider to make available any parts, tools, or documentation required for the diagnosis, maintenance, or repair of a video game console and its components and peripherals. Wonder if Valve/Xbox/Nintendo asked for that, this being Washington State.
- tadfisher 1y ago
  Valve already provides parts and documentation for the Steam Deck through a partnership with iFixit.
- ender341341 1y ago
  Given the support valve provides for the steam deck I'd be surprised if it was them. They seem much more interested in having a viable alternative to keep Microsoft from walling windows in such a way to kill steam than caring that they make the actual devices. I would 100% percent expect both Microsoft & Nintendo to have had a hand in that though.
  - ZeWaka 1y ago
    Yeah, I figure so - they were just the first company in Washington to come to mind given that I own their product, unlike the others :)
  - freedomben 1y ago
    Yes exactly. If anything, I would expect Valve to support this bill based on how repair-friendly they are. I will admit that over the years I've become a huge Valve fanboy because of their amazing contributions to Linux and making the Steam Deck an open platform, but Valve has really done a ton to make the world a better place. Yes it benefits their business too, but they definitely could have gone more evil than they did, so there's still reason to praise them.
  - RajT88 1y ago
    I've often wondered how much cross-talk there is between the two companies, given that the Nintendo America HQ is smack in the middle of the sprawling Microsoft campus. There's got to be some, I should think.

msgodel 1y ago

Nice! That had gotten extremely ridiculous to the point where I've been actively avoiding new consumer products just because maintaining them is such a hassle.

dmonitor 1y ago

Hopefully this doesn't mean the system can't report a non-OEM part being installed at all. Buying a used product that's been hacked apart would be frustrating.

onli 1y ago
There is no such restriction in the law. The relevant section reads like this, section 3: > an original manufacturer may not use parts pairing to: ... Cause a digital electronic product to display misleading alerts or warnings about unidentified parts, which the owner cannot immediately dismiss. So of course there can still be a notice, it just has to be dismissable. But Apple (the main company using part pairing against customers right now) has to stop making their products unusable when non-OEM parts are used for a repair. Side note: Be aware that baseless concerns like this echo propaganda against Right to Repair. You might have been infected by some Apple follower talking points there.
- Loughla 1y ago
  So there's nothing stopping them from having that pop up every single time you turn your phone screen on?
  - onli 1y ago
    Just above it says: > an original manufacturer may not use parts pairing to ... Reduce the functionality or performance of a digital electronic product Dismissable would have to be defined, but when being annoying about it it should be possible to show that it reduces the functionality. It would be clearly against the spirit of the law, but sure, Apple already risked management jail time by ignoring court orders so they might try stuff here as well.
- tbrownaw 1y ago
  > Side note: Be aware that baseless concerns like this echo propaganda against Right to Repair. You might have been infected by some Apple follower talking points there. "How dare you be anything less than blindly enthusiastic about this obviously good thing, you've clearly been tricked by someone evil."

guywithahat 1y ago

The phone part sounds great, the wheel chair portion sounds like it will just make wheel chairs more expensive. Wheelchairs are generally already highly repairable, and this will just reduce the options to consumers

Loughla 1y ago
High end wheelchairs are the opposite of repairable. A friend of mine has to use one because of his disability. It was the only model that met his particular needs for his disability, and was around 14k when he bought it. He can't even change the battery pack without sending it back to the company. The horn shorted out, and if we had disabled it (he can't even use it), it would've voided the entire warranty. Fuck, one of the wheel spoke things cracked and we couldn't even put a new wheel on it, because they only sell the wheels as part of the lower chassis to the tune of 5k. It's obscenely expensive to have a disability in the US, and these companies take advantage of people who just want to have basic mobility. It's really disgusting.
- sokoloff 1y ago
  > if we had disabled it (he can't even use it), it would've voided the entire warranty. The Magnuson-Moss Act pretty surely falsifies that claim by the manufacturer. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnuson%E2%80%93Moss_Warranty_Act https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnuson%E2%80%93Moss_Warran...
miki123211 1y ago
It'll just make many good wheelchairs unavailable in WA, forcing consumers to buy out of state, import from a foreign company that doesn't care about state laws, or go with a worse product. Since these are presumably financed by the government, the first two options may not even be available to most.

amazingamazing 1y ago

> That means no more pop-ups that say “unknown part” when you swap in a working screen. No more downgrading your camera or fingerprint sensor just because you repaired your own phone. I'm curious if that means that it's now illegal for the company to tell you if you have a device with fake parts. I also don't quite understand the security implications. If you need some attested part, like a TPM, and this and some other thing like a fingerprint sensor fail and you replace them both, you cannot disable the fingerprint sensor since now technically it cannot attest itself?

grishka 1y ago
Why not allow pairing the fingerprint sensor with the SoC fully offline?
miki123211 1y ago
Presumably, you can have the TPM tie fingerprint data to the sensor. If you replace the sensor with a "fake" one, old fingerprint data becomes invalid. This would be good enough for users, as adding their fingerprints back would take them minutes at most, while providing no value for attackers.